GW2 Have Sluggish Combat?

I have been interested in GW2 for a long time. I think it is going to be an amazing game. But the only thing I'm worried about is the combat. I'm not sure what games you all have played and I know some of you might be haters of certain games. But the reason I'm worried about the combat is because to be honest, WOW is the only one that has done it right.

When I click an ability in WOW, I "feel" the ability. When I played Warhammer, or now playing SWTOR, I just can't stand the sluggish combat feel. An instant cast feels as though it take .5 seconds to animate and another .5 to affect the target. When you throw in the GCD it takes forever. In WOW, for instance, when I spam icelance, I feel as though it is casting off. I'm not sure if any of you agree with me, and that's fine. I just know my feelings and others that I play with and they seem to agree that there is just someting "off" combat.

Another reason this is such a huge issue for me is that GW2 is for focused around pvp, and this sluggish feel really is a detrement to the flow of the game.

I'm sorry for rambling, I just really want this game to be great, and this starts with making us, the players, feeling as though our character can do what we want them to do.

It looks to be pretty nice combat. It's based on a lot of movement so I doubt it will be sluggish.

WoW's combat I found terribly boring. Well most mmo combat is boring (except I did love AoC's melee combat). I much prefer FPS style combat and from the comments of the GW2 developers they have a lot of inspiration from FPS games and MOBAs like League of Legends.

lol wow casting system is kinda bad. It's just like so many games before it boring and press this then wait. Not like other games haven't done it since in the exact same way (rift to mention a game I played) and it's basicly how mmo combat have been for ages allthough I didn't play mmos back then.
And pretty sure gw2 will have better combat than wow and more action packed

For people unaware, there is NO Global Cooldown in Guild Wars 2. All cooldowns are animations based from the start, so the only restriction, is you. If you use a big, wide spinning AoE ability, then the only thing keeping you from using your next ability is waiting for the current one to end.

Anet just recently re-did their animation draw system to make the combat even more responsive, supposedly. That was only a month or so ago. Before that reports were that the combat felt fast / responsive by demo-ist. So if we take the reports and Anet at their word, combat is supposedly quicker than in most hotkey MMOs.

For people unaware, there is NO Global Cooldown in Guild Wars 2. All cooldowns are animations based from the start, so the only restriction, is you. If you use a big, wide spinning AoE ability, then the only thing keeping you from using your next ability is waiting for the current one to end.

That is actually no longer the case, you don't have to wait for an animation to finish before firing off another ability.

"One of the elements that makes Guild Wars 2 combat feel different from other games is that many skills have their own unique animations, and the skill functionality is often based on the animations themselves. With a robust animation-blending system, we are able to easily transition between skills. In our previous demos, this was shown through chain skills, such as the warrior sword combo in the first skill slot: Sever Artery leads to Gash, which flows into Final Thrust. We realized that this system did not need to be reserved just for chain skills but could apply to the entire game. There were skills such as Savage Leap, which moved the player into range of their target, and big control attacks like Shield Bash, that you wanted to be able to quickly follow with another skill. The problem was that the animations for these skills had follow-through that was preventing players from using another skill until the animations were finished. You could stun or chase someone, but it was hard to capitalize on it.

Our programmers added technology to our skill data to allow us to specify a point in an animation at which the player could start moving again. This made skills like Savage Leap not only more functional but tremendously fun to use. This technology came in right before gamescom, so we were able to showcase it with a few important skills in that demo. Now that the technology has evolved, not only does it allow players to specify when they can start movement but it also allows us to transition into queued skills so that we can improve responsiveness. We went through every skill in the game and set up these animation breakout timings and the results were fantastic, but we didn’t stop there. I know many people have also noticed the more polished nature of the animations in the G-Star demo. Since we were able to go back and polish it, we also took a look at the impact of the new blending changes and made some timing changes to existing skills in order to give them more-appropriate anticipation, swing time, and follow-through to match the smoother feel that we were achieving with the blending. This really shines with things like big hammer swings, which now have slow buildups, quick attacks, and somewhat lengthy follow-through, depending on the skill. Ultimately, it creates a much more visceral and immediate system, which helps us straddle the line between action game and RPG."

Yeah, I haven't heard anything negative thus far as in regards to responsiveness and whatnot. And ahmagad, I can't wait for the cross-class combos with spells and abilities, that'll be so much fun to play around with. Should help keep things pretty fast-paced.

Guys thanks tons for the responses! My worries are slowly going away. I did not know that there was no global cool down. How do you guys think that will work? Too many people spamming abilities? I for one, love the idea. How about all of you?

Guys thanks tons for the responses! My worries are slowly going away. I did not know that there was no global cool down. How do you guys think that will work? Too many people spamming abilities? I for one, love the idea. How about all of you?

You can't spam abilities because most abilities have anywhere from 5-30 sec cooldowns. You CAN spam the 1 ability as that's your "auto attack". The Thief is one of the only exceptions, they can spam abilities for as long as they have Initiative, but they only have a limited amount and it regens when not using any abilities.

Combat in GW2 is much more methodical and strategic rather than spamming a rotation. You blow all of your abilities just because you can and you're going to be taking a dirt nap real quick.

Guys thanks tons for the responses! My worries are slowly going away. I did not know that there was no global cool down. How do you guys think that will work? Too many people spamming abilities? I for one, love the idea. How about all of you?

There are skill cooldowns. Just not an artificial GCD that really isn't right for MMOs these days. At least not the 2.0/1.5s GCDs of SWTOR and Rift. Very out of date. Warcraft's combat system is the most abhorrent, just many got use to that particular delay in action and believe it to be correct design.

There is no standing in place to cast most skills in GW2 either. You can cast on the run. The emphasis is on mobility, skill synergy and versatility in GW2 combat. How it will work out, we can't say yet.

Though if you look at the MMO genre in the context of other genres- you probably will find video game combat such as GW2 more common than "click-n-wait" combat of Warcraft & the like. You don't wait for GCDs in God of War, Call of Duty or Uncharted.

The concept is kinda locked heavily into the limitations of older MMOs. Think we will see combat more like GW2 in the future. Less so like Warcraft's outside of niche titles.

There are skill cooldowns. Just not an artificial GCD that really isn't right for MMOs these days. At least not the 2.0/1.5s GCDs of SWTOR and Rift. Very out of date. Warcraft's combat system is the most abhorrent, just many got use to that particular delay in action and believe it to be correct design.

There is no standing in place to cast most skills in GW2 either. You can cast on the run. The emphasis is on mobility, skill synergy and versatility in GW2 combat. How it will work out, we can't say yet.

Though if you look at the MMO genre in the context of other genres- you probably will find more video game combat such as GW2 more common than "click-n-wait" combat of Warcraft & the like. You don't wait for GCDs in God of War, Call of Duty or Uncharted.

The concept is kinda locked heavily into the limitations of old MMOs. Think we will see combat more like GW2 in the future. Less so like Warcraft's outside of niche titles.

Yeah, and there were no GCD if I remember right in Lineage 2

"Didn't we have some fun...though? Remember when the platform was sliding into the fire pit and I said 'Goodbye' and you were like 'No way' and then I was all 'We pretended we were going to murder you'......that was great"

We've to remember that in about every Gamescon/G-star etc video the players are experienced from WoW or games like WoW which means they aren't used to run and cast and have a more "actiony" combat system. This makes them to often stand still, forget to dodge etc. which leads them to have a less "actiony" combat than the game is supposed to have/ can have.
So when people learn to play GW2 as it's meant to be played, we're gonna see a shiny new awesome combat-system I think